Chapter 61: The Queen’s concern
Stefan’s POV
The system dinged, bringing along information that got my jaw dropping, and this time it wasn’t soft. It was sharp, businesslike...
[SCANNING COMPATIBLE RECRUITMENT CANDIDATE... ]
[... ]
[SCAN COMPLETE]
[New Recruitment Candidate Registered: Queen Saffron]
I blinked at that. The Queen, already? The same woman who had thrown me into a fountain like a stray dog she wanted drowned, who had threatened fire the moment water hadn’t finished the job. And apparently my system, ever the optimist, had just filed her under recruitable, like she was some blushing palace lady with a soft spot waiting to be found.
"Isn’t this too soon? I haven’t even settled in this palace?" I yelled inwardly, at no in particular.
As if that wasn’t shocking enough, more notifications dropped in my vision:
[PRIMARY MISSION ASSIGNED]
[Help resolve Queen Saffron’s immediate concern before sunset.]
[Deadline: Sunset.]
[Reward: 200 EXP, 100 AP, +20 Miracle Authority, Queen Recruitment Interface Unlocked.]
[Penalty: Queen recruitment difficulty increases by 100%.]
I read the information twice, slowly, letting each line land properly. The reward was generous, generous enough that some small greedy part of me wanted to rub my hands together, that miracle authority especially.
But the penalty sat heavier in my chest the longer I looked at it. Whatever ground I might eventually claw toward this woman, whatever Charm and Authority might slowly earn me if I played this right, gone before I’d even started. Doubled instead. Buried under twice the resistance I had already have to fight through.
"Perfect," I muttered, dragging a hand down my face. "Fail to fix a problem I don’t even know exists yet, and get punished by making the impossible woman even more impossible."
The system didn’t answer. It never engaged when it thought I was being clever, which, annoyingly, happened most of the time it stayed quiet.
Then, almost as an afterthought, it dropped the beast mood insight.
[QUEEN SAFFRON — CURRENT MOOD: Angry, Irritated.]
My mouth fell open again at that. I stared at where the notification hovered like just staring with focus would give me an explanation.
"You want me to solve a problem for an angry, irritated queen, before the sun goes down, and you haven’t even told me what the damn problem is." I gritted my teeth as I thought inwardly, not wanting the bodyguard behind me to hear.
Nothing.
Okay, fine. Let the bodyguard hear anything and everything. I actually used my voice, hoping the system would reply now;
"I haven’t done anything today. I woke up. That’s it. That’s the entire list of my accomplishments this morning. And somehow I’m supposed to march in there and fix whatever’s got Her Royal Wrath foaming before breakfast, with zero information, on a deadline I didn’t ask for."
I was building up a real head of steam, ready to give the system a proper piece of my mind, when Saffron’s voice cut clean through the wall of her room, flat and final.
"I will not see him now."
I froze mid-rant;
The system, sensing an opening it clearly found delicious, dinged again, louder this time, more formal.
[INCUBUS ASCENSION PATH]
Development Arc I: Presence
Purpose: An Incubus does not get dismissed.
Mission: Make the Queen listen to you.
Time Remaining: 2:00
I actually gasped out loud. Two minutes. Two minutes to undo a queen’s decision, with nothing but a Charm stat that was still practically an infant and an Authority stat that hadn’t been tested against anyone above a bodyguard’s rank.
[Penalty: -30 Miracle Authority.]
"30 what? Do you have any idea how long it takes to scrape together thirty MA on this planet?"
Thirty MA gone in one shot because a queen didn’t feel like talking to me before breakfast.
The bodyguard beside me shifted, reaching for my arm to march me back out the way I’d come.
"Don’t," I snapped, sharper than I meant to, and the authority stat still humming faintly under my skin from earlier did exactly what it was built to do. She froze, her hand hovering an inch from my shoulder, some flicker of uncertainty crossing her face like she genuinely didn’t know why she had stopped.
"Very well," she said stiffly, recovering herself. "But you need to leave."
Time Remaining: 1:45.
I didn’t have the luxury of arguing with her about it. I knew, with a sinking certainty settling low in my gut, that Charm and Authority weren’t going to do a damn thing here. Not against her. Both stats were still too low, barely scratching the surface of what they’d eventually become, and Saffron wasn’t some lady with a hidden soft spot waiting under a bit of pressure.
She was the top of this entire mountain. Every other woman on this planet just lived somewhere in her shadow, myself included, apparently.
Which left me exactly one option, and it was a stupid one.
Time Remaining: 1:15.
My legs moved and I broke into a run.
I shoved past the bodyguard before she could fully recover her footing, hit the door to the Queen’s private chamber with both hands, and threw it open without knocking, without announcing myself, without a single shred of the dignity I usually liked to pretend I had.
"What," Saffron’s voice came, low and dangerous, the kind of low that promised violence dressed up as calm, "do you think you’re doing?"
She was almost naked; she was in what I could describe as a lingerie. I got exactly half a second of that information, the curve of her hip catching the gold morning light, before the lady with her, moved fast, throwing her own body between us like a wall, blocking every last inch of the Queen from my eyes.
I felt a genuine stab of disappointment about that, which, considering the numbers currently bleeding off my Miracle Authority with every passing second, felt like a spectacularly bad use of my emotional bandwidth.
Time Remaining: 0:52.
"A Bound does not look upon Her Royal Majesty’s body," The lady snapped, and her voice had teeth in it now, nothing gentle left in it at all. "His eyes will be removed. Now."
"Before you pluck them out," I said fast, loud enough to cut clean through whatever order this lady was building toward, "she should hear me first. I came to solve her concern."
Time Remaining: 0:31.
The lady blinked, thrown off her rhythm for just a second, mouth half open around whatever command she had already started forming.
Then I heard Saffron said something in their beast tongue, sharp and clipped, and the lady moved instantly, pulling a length of drape around the Queen’s shoulders before stepping to the side, still glaring at me like she hadn’t ruled out the eye thing entirely, just tabled it for later.
Time Remaining: 0:12.
[MISSION COMPLETE. ]
The countdown blinked out of my vision entirely, and I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding.
I didn’t even have time to feel properly relieved. Saffron’s eyes fixed on me, cold and assessing, the fury from a moment ago folding itself into something colder and far more patient, something that felt, somehow, worse.
"What," she said, "do you, lowly Alien, know of my concern?"
I opened my mouth...
Then I remembered I had absolutely nothing. I didn’t know anything.
Shit!